Friends, today’s Gospel shows how Mary became the mother of all the members of the Body of Christ.Video reflection by Mrs. Lauri Przybysz (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Sunday Reflection.
At the Annunciation, the angel declared to the maiden of Nazareth: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." The two persons required for the Incarnation were, in other words, the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother.
Then we recall that, from the cross, Jesus pronounced this word to St. John: "Son, behold your mother." He was giving Mary not only to John, but through John to the whole Church. Mary would be the mother of all the beloved disciples of Jesus up and down the centuries.
Now we can make the connection: in becoming the mother of Christ, Mary, by extension, would become mother of all of those members of Christ’s Mystical Body across space and time. Just as the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother were required to bring about the Incarnation in history, so those same two agents are required to bring about the birth of Christ in our souls.
Reflect: How can you rely on the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother to bring about the birth of Christ more vividly in your own soul?
"Faith & life. These are nothing less than the realities in which we are immersed, & they are the goals to which we would draw attention. Keep them particularly in mind during the coming happy occasion."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. Paul VI (1897-1978, r. 1963-1978; feast: 29 May)
"One thing I ask of you: Never be afraid of giving. There is a deep joy in giving, since what we receive is much more than what we give."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"He Who createdus without our help will not save us without our consent."Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—St. Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church (354-430, feast: 28 August)
"When our Lord comes, it will not be just to judge the one circumscribed area of the earth in which He labored & revealed Himself. It will be to reveal Himself & to judge all nations & all empires. When that time is, nobody knows. He refuses to tell us. He only says that it will be sudden, like a flash of lightning. He, the Savior, is the judge. What a beautiful way to have a judgment. Can you imagine any earthly judge saying to a criminal before him: you were guilty, I am going to take all of your sins & crimes upon myself. I will suffer for you. What a judge he would be? But our Blessed Lord took upon Himself all of our sin as we stood before the bar of divine justice, & He who suffered for us will come to judge us. What a judgment it will be when we will see One who loved us so much."
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Friends, our Gospel today is from the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, which is thoroughly drenched in Davidic themes from the Old Testament.Video reflection by Marc DelMonico, Ph.D. (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Daily Reflection.
The first thing we hear about Zechariah is that he serves as priest in the Jerusalem temple; and David’s dream was to build the temple in which Zechariah serves. While in the sanctuary, Zechariah is visited by the angel Gabriel; and the temple locale and the announcement of the birth of a child against all expectations brings us back to Hannah’s pregnancy, which resulted in the birth of the forerunner to David. Indeed, Elizabeth’s words upon conceiving—“So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit to take away my disgrace before others”—powerfully evoke Hannah’s frame of mind when she, after many tears and much prayer, finally became pregnant.
What does this have to do with the life of Jesus? From beginning to end of his preaching career, Jesus’ central theme was the arrival of the kingdom of God, which was understood to mean the ingathering of the scattered tribes of Israel. And what becomes eminently clear in all of the Gospels is that this coming together would happen in and through Jesus himself, much as the knitting together of ancient Israel happened in the person of David. Jesus definitively fulfills what David himself left incomplete and unfinished.
Reflect: In his wisdom and power, God arranged for certain people to aid in the mission of his Son (e.g., the birth of John the Baptist from a barren mother and the sinlessness of Jesus’ mother, Mary). Who has God put in your life to help you fulfill the mission he has entrusted to you?
"It is felt right that a shepherd should bestow great care & watchfulness upon his flock."Bonus! Papal Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. Anasatius I, Pope (d. 401, r. 399-410; feast: 19 December)
"No one can really enjoy Christmas without sharing that joy with those who, on this blessed day, still need food, work, a home, medical care, a friend, comfort, or faith. The religious spirit of Christmas must find its expression in generosity."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. Paul VI (1897-1978, r. 1963-1978; feast: 29 May)
"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, & they pass by themselves without wondering."Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—St. Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church (354-430, feast: 28 August)
"He dies in the great city of Jerusalem that indeed His crucifixtion may be known to a great many of all, but the glory of His birth is hidden in the least of the cities."
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Most Blessed Virgin, Mother of the Poor, teach me to fight for justice for those whoa re oppressed. Help me to identify with the humble ones of this world, as you did when you appears to [Saint] Juan Diego.Scripture of the Day
Friends, today we celebrate the great feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. What followed the apparition of Mary at Tepeyac is one of the most astounding chapters in the history of Christian evangelization.
Though Franciscan missionaries had been laboring in Mexico for twenty years, they had made little progress. But within ten years of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe practically the entire Mexican people, nine million strong, had converted to Christianity. Our Lady of Guadalupe had proved a more effective evangelist than Peter, Paul, St. Patrick, and St. Francis Xavier combined! And with that great national conversion, the Aztec practice of human sacrifice came to an end. She had done battle with fallen spirits and had won a culture-changing victory for the God of love.
The challenge for us who honor her today is to join the same fight. We must announce to our culture today the truth of the God of Israel, the God of Jesus Christ, the God of nonviolence and forgiving love. And we ought, like Our Lady of Guadalupe, to be bearers of Jesus to a world that needs him more than ever.
Reflect: In what ways does our culture "sacrifice humans," either literally or figuratively? What is your responsibility as a disciple of Christ to work to put an end to these affronts to human dignity?
"Our Lady of Guadalupe is still the great sign of the nearness of Christ with Whom she invites every human being to enter into communion. She also invites people into communion with one another in respect for each one's rights & in a just common sharing of the goods of this earth."Bonus! Papal Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 2005-2013; feast: 22 October)
"Being awake for God & for other people—that is the kind of ‘waking’ that Advent has in mind, the wakefulness that discovers the light & brightens the world."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope Benedict XVI (b. 1927, r. 2005-2013)
"Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Stregthen me O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"When you see the storm coming, if you seek safety in that firm refuge which is Mary, there will be no danger of your wavering or going down."
—St. Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975, feast: 26 June)
"Now we come to what our Lord said about heaven. It was the night of the Last Supper. Jesus gathered about Him all His apostles—poor, weak, frail men. He washed their feet. He was facing the agony in the garden, & that terrible betraying kiss of Judas, & even the denial of Peter himself. One would think that all the talk would be about Himself. Certainly, when we have trials, that is what we think about. But our Lord thought about the apostles. He saw the sadness in their faces, & He said, 'Be not troubled, do not be sad, I go to prepare a place for you. In My Father's house there are many mansions.' How did He know about the Father's house? He came from there. That was His home. Now preparing to go back home, He tells them about the Father's house & He says, 'I go to prepare a place for you.' God never does anything for us without great preparation. He made a garden for Adam, as only God knows how to make a garden beautiful. Then, when the Jews came into the promised land, He prepared the land for them. He said He would give them houses full of good things, houses which they never built. He said that He would give [them] vineyards & olive trees which they never planted. Just so, He goes to prepare a place for us. Why? Simply because we were not made for heaven; we were made for earth. Man, by sin, spoiled the earth, & God came down from heaven in order to help us remake it. After having redeemed us, He said that He would now give us heaven, so we got all this; the earth, & heaven too."
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Friends, in our Gospel, Jesus tells parables that express his joy over repentant sinners. Christianity is, first and foremost, a religion of the concrete and not the abstract. It takes its power, not from a general religious consciousness, not from an ethical conviction, not from a comfortable abstraction, but from the person of Jesus Christ.shalom-radiating Resurrection—that moves the believer to change of life and gift of self. And it is the unique Christ—depicted especially in the lives of the great saints—who speaks transformatively to hearts and souls across the Christian centuries.
It is Christ—in his uncompromising call to repentance, his unforgettable gestures of healing, his unique and disturbing practice of forgiveness, his provocative nonviolence, and especially his movement from godforsaken death to
"Grace is Divine Life in the human soul, fruit of reconciliation, gifts of God in Jesus. It is the beginning of eternal life, that is, of salvation."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)
"Bring prayer back into your family life & you will experience unity—& a joyful love that will bind you together. Maybe there is suffering in your family, but praying together, sharing together, loving together will help you."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"It all depends on having a quiet little corner where you can talk to God on a daily basis as if nothing else existed… & regarding yourself completely as an instrument, so that you treat your most frequently demanded talents, not as something that you use, but as God working through you."Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, O.C.D. (1891-1942, feast: 9 August)
"It very often happens that when we have a little opportunity to do our own will, we can become much closer to the Lord by accepting His. In the book of the prophet Ezra, we read something that we need to dwell on very often. Ezra says: 'We have suffered for our evil deeds & for our great guilt, although our God has punished us less than our iniquities deserve.' Indeed, if we are honest, we will admit that we all receive fewer blows than we deserve."
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us: "Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows."Video reflection by the Reverend Brian Garcia (U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops): Daily Reflection.
In Jesus Christ, you are connected to the very power of God, to that which is here and now creating the universe. You stand above the vagaries of space and time. You are in the center of the wheel of fortune. No matter how much it turns, you stay the same. You are in the Interior Castle.
Now think of saints like John Paul II and Jose Sanchez del Rio. The young Karol Wojtyła operated behind locked doors, preserving the great works of Polish literature during the Nazi occupation. That same man, now come of age and newly elected as pope, said to all the world, "Be not afraid!" This from someone who had experienced the worst barbarism of the twentieth century.
During the Cristero Rebellion in early twentieth-century Mexico, the young Jose Sanchez del Rio stood for his faith despite enormous opposition, torture, threats, and finally the firing squad itself. He wasn’t afraid of those paper tigers who could only kill his body.
So, no matter how much violence is going on, we have a place of safety.
"God the Father loves each of you. It is not that He loves you too, but that He loves you most of all. His is a love so strong that it melts the hardness of the human heart. His is a justice that is clothed in mercy."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)
"If you were to die today, what would others say about you? What was in you that was beautiful, that was Christlike, that helped others to pray better? Face yourself, with Jesus at your side, & do not be satisfied with just any answer. Go deep into the question. Examine your life."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"I need nothing but God, & to lose myself in the Heart of Jesus."
—St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, V.H.M. (1647-1690, feast: 16 October)
"We are living in the only period of the world's history in which there is a universal denial of guilt. Dostoevsky wrote: 'The time is coming when men will say there is no sin; there is no guilt; there is only hunger. And they will come crying & fawning to our feet saying, "Give us bread."' It used to be that Catholics were the only ones who believed in the Immaculate Conception. Now everybody believes that he was immaculately conceived."
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Lord Jesus, let me imitate St. Jerome & aspire to a deep & penetrating knowledge of Scripture. May I be ever more deeply nourished by the Divine Word & find in it a source of life.'Tis also the festival of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, Bishop (circa 257-332), Patriarch of Armenia (288-325, A.K.A. Catholicos of All Armenians): Saint-link & Wikipedia-link; Wikipedia-link Armenia & Wikipedia-link Patriarchs.
Friends, today’s Gospel invites us to follow Jesus above all. The heart of the message is the claim that he is everything, the one for whom a totalizing decision has to be made.Video reflection by Jem Sullivan, Ph.D. (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Daily Reflection.
I want to consider in detail how one man in our Gospel responded to the Lord’s call to discipleship. Jesus simply said, “Follow me,” and the man replied, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” Well, then as now, nothing would seem more reasonable! Of course, you have to take care of your own father’s funeral. What could be more important, especially in a family-centric culture like that of ancient Israel?
Jesus answers with devastating laconicism: “Let the dead bury their dead.” We’re stunned by this deeply insensitive answer! This violates every sense of ethics and decorum that we have. Be honest: if you heard this from a religious teacher, wouldn’t you be tempted to leave him?
Here’s the point: Jesus hasn’t one little thing against family obligations. But he will insist that our relationship to him is more important than even those most sacred of obligations. Even this most precious thing must fall away if we are to make him absolutely first.
"Saint Jerome was the model of devotion & service to the revealed Word. He never tired of reminding the Church that God Himself spoke to the soul of the sacred writers: 'To be ignorant of the Scriptures is not to know Christ.'"Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)
"Death is the most decisive moment in human life. It is like our coronation: to die in peace with God."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"Do you realize that Jesus is there in the tabernacle expressly for you—for you alone? He burns with the desire to come into your heart… don't listen to the demon, laugh at him, & go without fear to receive the Jesus of peace & love…"Catholic Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast: 1 October)
"If you wish to have peace & true wholeness, you must set aside everything else & tend to your own affairs. Let nothing seem great, high, pleasing, or agreeable to you except God alone & what comes from God. Consider it hollow comfort whatever comes from anything else. God alone, eternal & measureless, fills all. He is the soul's comfort & true joy."Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (1380-1471)
"Once when I was waiting outside for an audience with Pope Pius XII, I was troubled in spirit. I was saying to myself, the good Lord has given me many more opportunities than He's given to other priests: education & opportunities for apostolate, & how little I have done with them. I was disconsolate. Then when I went in & saw Pope Pius XII, I said, 'Your Holiness, I have just discovered how easy judgment is going to be.'
"He said, 'Tell me, I would like to know.'
"I said, 'Well, I was just saying to myself how much I've failed, how little I have loved the Church, really. Then I come in here, & I find the Church personalized. You are the Church, & I am deeply moved at seeing you & how much I love you. I think that's just the way it's going to be when we go before the face of our dear Lord. We will be discontented with ourselves, but when we go there, we will be surprised how much we really have loved Him.'
"'Yes,' he said, 'that's exactly the way it will be.'"
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus sends his disciples on mission: He summoned the Twelve… and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” As members of the Mystical Body, we share the mission of evangelization.Video reflection by Jem Sullivan, Ph.D. (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Daily Reflection.
In accord with the subjectivism of our culture, many Christians think of their spiritual lives in an individualist way, as the cultivation of their personal friendship with God. But this overlooks something that the New Testament authors took for granted—namely, that Christians exist not for themselves but for the world.
Jesus compared his followers to salt, which is designed to preserve and enhance something other than itself, and to light, whose purpose is to be set on a stand in order to illumine what is around it. Pope St. Paul VI articulated the same truth as follows: the Church doesn’t have a mission; the Church is a mission.
We go forth, therefore, with God’s authority and empowered for his work. When we stand before the judgment seat of Christ he will ask whether we have taught the world how to praise, how to reverence the truth, how to go out vigorously on campaign to extend the kingdom of God.
"Every burden is light when we are united to Christ, when it is He Who gives us the strength & breath to go on walking. On the other hand, how heavy the burden is when it is carried without Christ!"Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)
"Money? I never give it a thought. It always comes. We work for Jesus. It is His work & He will provide. He has always taken care of us. If He wants something to be done, He will give us the means. If He does not provide us with the means, then it shows that He doesn't want that particular work. So, I forget about it."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"The Earth could exist more easily without the Sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass."
—St. Pius of Pietrelcina, O.F.M. Cap. (1887-1968, feast: 23 September)
Friends, in today’s Gospel, we learn that some women accompanied Jesus and provided for him and the Twelve from their resources. Jesus invited women into full participation in the life of discipleship.Video reflection by the Reverend Jason Martini (U. S. C. of Catholic Bishops): Daily Reflection.
All of those women sat in eager discipleship at the feet of Jesus. Now, don’t get me wrong! I’m not advocating the contemporary feminist agenda, which often runs rough-shod over the real differences that obtain between men and women.
But I am urging you to see the radicality of Jesus’ call to discipleship, which cuts through so many of the social conventions of his time and ours. I am urging you to see that everyone—rich and poor, those on the inside and those on the outs, men and women—are summoned to discipleship and that this summons is the most important consideration of all.
Given all of this, can we see these women disciples as forerunners of all of the great women who have followed Jesus over the centuries? Can we see them as prototypes of Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, Clare of Assisi, Thérèse of Lisieux, Mother Teresa of Kolkata, Katharine Drexel, Edith Stein, and Dorothy Day?
"The voice of the Church is like the voice of a mother: it may seem monotonous at times. However, it has a tone of tenderness & of strength that keeps us from evil & saves us."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John XXIII (1881-1963, r. 1958-1963; feast: 11 October)
"Confess your win & be finished with it. God's mercy is greater than your sin. Don't be afraid, scrupulous, or anxious. You are a sinner full of sin when you go to Confession, & when you come out you are a sinner without sin. But alwaus, before everythign else & after everything else, you are a child of God."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"O my Lord Jesus, whose love for me has been so great as to bring Thee down from heaven to save me, teach me, dear Lord, my sin—teach me its heinousness—teach me truly to repent of it—and pardon it in Thy great mercy!"Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—St. John Henry Newman, C.O. (1801-1890, feast: 9 October)
"Besides apathy & antipathy, there was empathy, the few chosen souls at the foot of the cross. You see, the cross unites not only the friends of our Lord, the cross unites enemies. We will begin to see as the world goes on, a new kind of bigotry. We will be opposed not because we believe, for example, in the supremacy of the Holy Father, but because we are standing in the way of the demoralization of the world. We stand for life against death. We stand for the family against divorce. We stand for purity against fornication. We stand for goodness instead of vice. We are the great obstacle to the world. The new bigotry will see that cross & will hate us. So we have to be prepared for it, & we have to take our stand underneath it."
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
O Lord, ease the pain of those who have lost children to drugs or violence. Console those whose children are rebelling & ungrateful. May they learn from Mary's trust, & share in her gentle love.'Tis also the festival of Saints Emilas, Deacon, & Jeremiah, Martyrs (died 852), martyred in the reign of the Umayyad king Abd ar-Rahman II, two of the forty-eight Martyrs of Córdoba: Martyr-link Echo, Martyr-link Juliett, & Wikipedia-link (List); Wikipedia-link Córdoba.
Friends, we hear in today’s Gospel that, as he was dying on the cross, Jesus looked to his mother and the disciple whom he loved, and he said to Mary, “Woman, behold, your son,” and then to John, “Behold, your mother.”Video reflection by Deacon Arthur L. Miller (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Daily Reflection.
We are told that “from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” This text supports an ancient tradition that the Apostle John would have taken Mary with him when he travelled to Ephesus in Asia Minor and that both ended their days in that city. Indeed, on the top of a high hill overlooking the Aegean Sea, just outside of Ephesus, there is a modest dwelling that tradition holds to be the house of Mary.
Immaculate Mary, the Mother of God, assumed body and soul into heaven, is not of merely historical or theoretical interest, nor is she simply a spiritual exemplar. Instead, as “Queen of all the saints” (another of her titles), Mary is an ongoing presence, an actor in the life of the Church.
In entrusting Mary to John, Jesus was, in a real sense, entrusting Mary to all those who would be friends of Jesus down through the ages.
"Mary not only leads us to the Mystery of the Cross like a teacher; she also participates in that Mystery. She suffers with Jesus & suffers with us. With Jesus she also confronts & defeats the powers of evil."Saint Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)
"There are men who think that God is so great that He disdains to look down upon us, our doings & our fortunes. But He who did not find it beneath His Majesty to make us, does not think it beneath Him to observe & to visit us."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—St. John Henry Newman, Cong. Orat. (1801-1890, feast: 9 October)
"You can pray while you work. Work doesn't stop prayer & prayer doesn't stop work. It requires only that small raising of the mind to Him: I love You God, I trust You, I believe in You, I need You now. Small things like that. These are wonderful ways to pray & wonderful prayers."Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—St. Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"The Lord has His Sacrament. It's very much like marriage. The marriage act of husband & wife is a kind of sacrifice because the lover dies to himself & submits to the beloved. The beloved dies to herself & submits to the lover, & out of that mutual death there comes the ecstasy of love. That is the sacrifice. Do a husband & wife have a love that is only manifested in that sacrificial act? Are there not any courtesies of companionship which would even surpass in the quiet silence the ecstasy of two in one flesh? As Maeterlinck said: A friend is one in whose presence you can keep silence. As a matter of fact, their happiness, one with another, depends upon the deep consciousness that each one is a sacrament of the other. So our Lord has a Sacrament. He is really & truly present, Body & Blood, soul & divinity in the holy Eucharist. And if we know how to love, we become sensitive & responsive, & when we come into visit Him, He will talk to us. We take on His likeness; as Moses' face shone because He was with God. So, too, St. Paul tells us that we grow in splendor because we are in the presence of God. Moses' splendor grew as he returned again to the mountain; this splendor rises in us, because we return to Christ. We reflect, says Saint Paul, as in a mirror, the splendor of the Lord, & thus we are transfigured into His likeness, from splendor to splendor. That is what the Eucharist does"
—Ven. Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
